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I’d walk all night every night
when I was security, paid to walk, a coworker
fired when he was having trouble walking, too
old, limping, the bosses seeing this, telling him
that it probably wasn’t the right job for him,
because all we did was walk, was the job, really,
nothing else, just walking and our eyes, just legs
and seeing, observing the nothingness of the night,
the moon all hot in the watery sky, like a hot coal
thrown into a lake, and the deer’s eyes would glow,
so many deer, always paired up, coupled, in love,
I imagined, fawns nearby, hidden, and then they,
too, would come out, hesitant, and they’d eat,
chomp was the word I’d think, how it looked like
they were chomping, just chewing, staring at me
and I’d stare at them, because we were each so
familiar with each other now, the midnight shifts
that we all worked, me and the deer, except I was
alone, very alone, a forest of loneliness, snow, and
the job exposed us to radiation and we signed
forms saying we were all right with this and
the deer didn’t sign any forms, and the deer
were so quiet, times when they’d walk across
the road tiptoeing, comically, as if I didn’t see
them, and the moon would ache up above.
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